Bartoli Moves to Wimbledon Women’s Final by Defeating Flipkens

France’s Marion Bartoli lost just three games in her defeat of Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens to reach the women’s final of the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Bartoli won 6-1, 6-2 on Centre Court at the All England Club in London. The 28-year-old returns to the final, where she lost to Venus Williams in 2007. Flipkens, 27, received treatment on her knee during the match.

“I played so great,” Bartoli said in a televised interview. “Today I saw the ball like a football. I was hitting the ball very cleanly from the start straight away. Everything was working perfectly, to do that in a semifinal at Wimbledon on Centre Court is an amazing feeling.”

The Frenchwoman will play the winner of the semifinal between Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska and Sabine Lisicki of Germany. None of the women’s semifinalists have won the All England Club singles title.

No. 15 seed Bartoli, who plays two-handed shots from both sides, hasn’t lost a set on her way to the final. She beat American Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals.

Flipkens was the girl’s singles champion at Wimbledon in 2003, but was playing in her first Grand Slam semifinal today. She was ranked 175th in the women’s WTA tennis tour last year and didn’t make the field at the All England Club.

The Belgian missed two months of the season this year because of injuries, including blood clots in her calf, and her ranking dropped to 262nd. Flipkens, seeded 20th, upset eighth-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals, losing her only set in her run to the last four.

“Kirsten had an amazing run,” Bartoli said. “I think she was a bit injured today. She had some incredible matches in the tournament. I had to give her a hug, because it’s too bad to be injured after you’ve worked hard to reach the semifinal.”